The Electoral Commission (IEC) has confirmed that the unlawful release of candidate lists for the ANC and uMkhonto weSizwe at the weekend was done from inside the commission.
This after the commission instituted an investigation that it has become aware of a list of candidates that was circulated on social media.
Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo details the investigation, “The commission is able to provide a preliminary report as follows, the investigation has narrowed the source of the disclosure to a workstation that has been used to generate and store those reports. Later the said reports were deleted from the workstation. Earlier today, that workstation was secured and imaged in the presence of the officials whose credentials were used to generate the reports.”
Earlier, the Information Regulator had given the five days to respond to the information notice it directed to the commission.
This after the regulator confirmed that it received two notifications from the IEC regarding a security breach that saw the unlawful release of candidate lists at the weekend.
Following this incident, the Electoral Commission assured the nation that they are investigating the matter.
The regulator’s executive overseeing the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) Advocate Tshepo Boikanyo,”Where there is a security compromise of this magnitude, we also want to establish certain things. One of the things that we want to establish are the security measures whether, the organisation in question that is the IEC the responsible party, had taken appropriate and reasonable technical measures to prevent any unlawful access to the personal information in question. You would know that our Section 19 of POPIA says that any responsible party that is in possession of personal information must ensure that its secure the integrity of such information.”
